I thought that only the regional 1st and 2nd place, with the regional chairman’s award winner, gets to attend the championship event in Atlanta.
But people are already asking whose going to nationals and about hotels etc.
So can someone please explain it to me 
(forgive me…it’s my first time participating in FIRST)
http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/2006/cmp_elig.htm
A lot more than you think.
Some are founding teams from the beginning of FIRST’s history.
Some are winners of award over the years chairman’s
Some are merit based on this year. (regional wins, and various other 2006 yet to be determined awards at events)
Then some spots are left open for teams to sign up after a certain time frame this year. (basically a tier system.)
Regional winners (3), Chairman’s winners (1), and Rookie All-Star winners (1) are the qualifications at regional level. Then you have the tiers. It is possible for a team to have more than one slot reserved due to tier, then winning something at a regional. Others may get slots from a regional IF it’s a special situation. It’s happened only once, so don’t count on it happening.
Also this year Championship Registration was opened to teams in all tiers. So anyone could register before Event Registration closed.
Also the Engineering Inspiration award winner from each regional. That’s 6 per regional, a total of 198. FIRST is reserving 100 spots at the Championship for regional qualifiers (340 teams, minus 240 open registration). That means they assume half of the qualifying teams will have already open-enrolled. Although I suspect the 340 team figure isn’t set in stone, they could expand by a few if needed.
It should be noted that Rookies can qualify for the Championship ONLY by being a Regional Winner or Regional Rookie All-Star.
If a team has more than one slot reserved (registers for nationals through the tier system and them qualifies at the regional level) are one of their slots opened up for another team to take?
Yes.
FIRST wants to have a full complement of teams at the Championship, so they do correct for teams that double qualify, as well as those who qualify, but are unable to attend. (cost, school travel policy, etc.)
So I take it that FIRST has a registration period after the last weekend of regionals?
No registration opens up, they take teams that are on the wait list and ask them if they want to attend.
There is no open registration after regionals, unless you are a team that qualified at a regional.
Team Hyper, #69 will be attending the champianship event. Our team is eligable!!!